My Genealogy Hound

JOHN O. REAY, proprietor of Reay’s tobacco stemmery, was born June 13, 1832, in Louisville, Ky., being the youngest of three children born to the marriage of William Reay and Caroline Meriwether, who were natives of Virginia and Kentucky respectively. The father, who was a carpenter by trade, settled at Louisville about the year 1823, where he married and worked at his trade until his death in 1835. Mrs. Reay died in that city in 1840. John O. Reay, after his parents’ deaths, was raised on a farm near the city, completing his schooling with a course at South Hanover College at Madison, Ind., and the Indiana State University at Bloomington. At twenty years of ago he left his adopted home and for a number of years farmed in Kentucky, Tennessee and Rockport. In 1864 he came to Rockport, Ind., and erecting the first stemmery in the county has since been engaged in the tobacco business. He employs about forty-five hands, and annually handles about one and a half million pounds of tobacco. Mr. Reay is a Democrat, a Council Degree Mason, and he and wife belong to the Presbyterian Church. September 5, 1860, he wedded Martha Neville, a native of Clarksville, Tenn., and John O. and Neville are the names of the two children born to them.